


Turn of the Coin

by doomcanary



Series: Melinna [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gender or Sex Swap, Magical Accidents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-20
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:16:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcanary/pseuds/doomcanary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur's trying something new and getting it wrong. Gwen has to deal with the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn of the Coin

Gwen bites into the apple hungrily; it's crisp and juicy under her teeth, green waxy skin and flesh as white as snow. The juice bursts across her tongue, cooling as it slides down her throat – but something's wrong. The chill spreads; sinks into her, spreading through her neck, down into her chest and out across her body. Something's changing. Her clothes feel too tight, she's dizzy, everything's going dark -

In the slow breeze that winds around the street in the early dawn, a body hits the ground with a dull thud.

 

 

“You lost it? What do you mean you lost it? Arthur, that's a-”

“I was in a very bad mood, okay? I threw it out of the window and I didn't watch where it went.”

“And?” says Merlin, who knows Arthur well enough to tell when he's hiding something.

“It... may have gone quite a long way.”

“You threw an enchanted object out of the window, with magic, and now you don't know where it is.”

“You might put it like that.” Arthur has the air of a boy caught stealing sweets; it would be endearing, if it wasn't for the situation.

“Arthur, there is now a magical object somewhere in the town, we don't know where or who might have it or when this is going to come back to haunt us, and don't tell me – the reason you were throwing a strop in the first place is because it hadn't worked properly, again.”

Arthur says nothing, just glares stubbornly.

“What did it do?”

“Nothing at all. Nothing happened.”

“Great,” says Merlin. “When are you going to learn that doesn't mean it didn't work? Now we've got an unidentified enchanted apple that might do pretty much anything. I should never have started teaching you any of this. I said you weren't ready for that kind of spell.”

“All right, Merlin, I should have listened,” snaps Arthur. “You're right for once, enjoy it.”

“But not until after I've helped you get that apple back, of course.”

Arthur relaxes a little; anyone else would be heaving a gigantic sigh of relief. Merlin holds his hand out.

“Hāmsīþe, æppel,” he says.

“My god, it's that simple? You-”

“Nothing's happened.”

Nothing has. Arthur falls silent. Merlin closes his eyes and reaches out, searching for the tang of magic.

“There's nothing, Arthur.”

“So it didn't work at all then.”

Merlin focuses in, on the room. Here, the taste of magic lingers in the air like the scent of last night's fire.

“No, you did something, Arthur. I can feel it.”

“Then where's the apple?”

Merlin opens his eyes, and knows he must look as pale as Arthur is.

“It's already spent. Someone's eaten it.”

 

 

Gwen chokes into wakefulness as ice-cold water is dashed in her face.

“You had a good night then,” observes a gravelly voice. Gwen splutters, wiping water out of her eyes; it's a stranger, a grizzled man in his shirt with a bucket dangling from his hand.

“Git up off my doorstep,” he says.

“What?” she says.

“You heard. And you'd best get home to your mam before anyone catches you in that get-up.”  
Gwen looks down and gives a little cry; her dress is ruined. It seems to have shrunk on her skin and torn – but no – she's -

Terror blinds her; she leaps to her feet, and runs for the only safety she can think of. Home.

 

 

Morgana knocks sharply on the door, and seems to radiate the expectation that it will open. By itself, if necessary. She is disappointed.

“Guinevere!” she calls, and knocks again.

This time there's a pause, and then the door opens a crack, revealing a sliver of a face Morgana at first takes for Gwen's; but no, it's a young man, no-one she's ever seen before. Seeing her, his eyes widen in horror; evidently he knows her.

“My lady,” he says, barely above a whisper.

“I'm looking for Guinevere,” says Morgana. “She didn't arrive for work today.”

“She – er – she... isn't here.”

“Then where is she?” asks Morgana patiently. The boy seems to be simple.

“I – I don't know.”

Morgana shoves the door open and steps inside, glaring around the room as if Gwen might be concealed. But he's telling the truth; the dim room is empty. Gwen's left her mending heaped on a chair, the yellow dress she often wears with half its seams ripped out.

“If I find you've got my maidservant in trouble, there will be a price to pay,” says Morgana frostily.

“Oh – no, no my lady, it's nothing like that at all – it's – she's -”

The gibbering is unmistakable; a relative, then. “I see,” says Morgana. “You're family.”

“Yes,” says the youth, relaxing for the first time. “Yes I am. I'm her – her brother. Half-brother.”

“She hasn't mentioned you.”

“I'm, er, I live a long way away. Near the Cornish border.”

“Well, then. If you see Gwen, please let her know I want to see her as soon as possible. She has a lot of catching up to do.”

“I will. He freezes for a moment, then gives an even more awkward bow. “Er, thankyou, my lady.”

 

 

As Morgana's footsteps recede across the yard, Gwen puts her (long, muscled) back against the door, leans her (short-haired) head against it, and lets herself shake. She wants to cry, but somehow the tears won't come. Her father's shirt is too big on her frame, hanging loose about her slender shoulders; and it still smells of him.

 

 

“Nothing,” reports Arthur tersely, closing his chamber door on the morning's audiences.

“No sorcerous happenings? No calling out the guard?”

“Nothing.” Arthur refuses to catch the levity Merlin injects into his words.

“Arthur, for all we know all that happened is that there's one single squirrel in Camelot that isn't quite the way it used to be.”

“Yes,” says Arthur. “Or, there's one single ten-foot squirrel beast which will not be detected until it kills.”

“You're crap at magic, but you're not that crap.”

Arthur shoots Merlin a look which is half entreaty and half rage.

“Look,” says Merlin, going calmly over to him and beginning the process of taking his doublet off. “You know what you were trying to do, and you might not have got it perfect but there's a big difference between 'I turn the coin, only I happen to be a squirrel at the time' and 'I turn you into a giant slavering squirrel-beast'.”

“If you say so,” says Arthur, clearly only partly mollified.

“And anyway, squirrels don't eat meat,” says Merlin. “Changing something like that would be a real challenge. I think the townsfolk are safe. The harvest might not be, but that's still assuming we've actually got a ravening squirrel-beast.”

He keeps talking, but he can feel Arthur's tension under his hands. It's not really helping much.

 

 

Gwen sits down on her bed, head in her overlarge hands, and tries desperately to calm herself down and think. She feels wrong – she has a driving urge to be out there doing something about this, when she knows she needs to keep calm and think it through.

Who can she go to? Who would help, instead of just turning her over to the king? Merlin? He knows about magic – and there was the time this even happened to him. But he's been – different, lately. He spends hours closeted with Arthur, and in public the two of them exchange looks that communicate in ways Gwen can't follow. There's something happening there, and she doesn't know what it is. Gaius, maybe? But Gaius isn't here – he's gone to Northumbria to meet with some scholars.

She looks up sharply as a scuffling and a thud sounds from behind the house. That restless drive has her at the door before she can stop herself; her hands's on the latch. She's not expecting a tap to sound against the door; and then the last voice she'd have expected in the world says “Hello? Gwen?”

 

 

“Lancelot!” sobs a desperate, dark-skinned young man, flinging his arms around the knight's neck. Lancelot is, to say the least, surprised.

“Er,” he says, disentangling himself and trying to look the kid in the face. He really doesn't seem to want to be seen. “Forgive me, but I don't think we've met.”

He sees a flash of anguished dark eyes, and then the boy is tugging him inside, and closing the door.

“Lancelot,” he says in the dimness, “it's me, Gwen.”

“Gwen?”

“It's magic, Lancelot,” says the boy, wringing his hands. “Someone's cast a spell on me. I don't know what to do!”

Lancelot pauses, and takes stock of the situation as any good knight should.

“Gwen,” he says quietly, looking around the half-empty room, “what happened to your father?”

The boy opposite him, the girl he once knew, crumples and bursts into tears.

 

 

“Nothing from the servants either,” confirms Merlin. “Arthur, you have to stop torturing yourself. I'm sure this will all blow over.”

Arthur sighs, and Merlin can practically voice the one-sided conversation going on in the prince's head.

“No, you shouldn't give up learning magic at all,” he says. Arthur flinches, but carries on looking away.

“Yes it is dangerous,” Merlin goes on. “Yes you are taking an enormous risk. But it's not like you sneeze and it comes out by accident. You're not like that, Arthur, that's just me. And I don't know whether you've forgotten, but you told me you were doing this for the kingdom's sake. For the future. Mistakes have to be expected.”

“Not from me,” says Arthur, and his voice is twisted with emotion. “I can't make mistakes like that.”

“Arthur,” says Merlin, instinctively reaching out for him. “It's not about your father either. Come on, stop it. You know you're going to have to be a different man.”

Arthur does know, Merlin's well aware of that; because he and Merlin have had this talk. Merlin remembers Arthur's faultless logic as he described the way Uther's reign is slowly grinding Albion into dust, and the emptiness of his eyes while he spoke. Arthur told him how the ban on magic is slowly breaking down the goodwill of the people and sowing the seeds of a sorcerers' rebellion; and all the time he looked heartsick, knowing that some day, he would have to betray his own father to be a good king.

What Arthur doesn't see, the reason Merlin is standing here now, pulling him into a rough hug and carelessly pushing a hand into his hair, is the pain that embeds itself in the deep lines of his face every time he thinks about what he said.

“It's not fair, and it's not right,” murmurs Merlin quietly. “But it is life. I've got your back, Arthur, always.”

 

 

Gwen is asleep, an exhausted, loose-limbed sprawl; absurdly, the youth she has become is resting his head on Lancelot's chest, like a child. Or a woman, he supposes. Lancelot is frowning, staring into space as he considers his options. It's sorcery, of course; and he knows well enough that Merlin, for better or worse, is one who will understand that problem. But going to Merlin means revealing his presence to him, and like as not to Arthur as a result; and that's something he would far rather avoid. But Gwen's in no fit state to go alone; she's broken to pieces, terrified after her father's death that merely being seen as she is will lead inevitably to her discovery and execution.

Not without reason, perhaps. Uther Pendragon is not the king he ought to be, it seems. Tom was a good man and a fine craftsman, and didn't deserve a death like that. Lancelot wonders how Arthur is taking it.

Gwen stirs, and suddenly stiffens as she realises where she is.

“Sorry – I'm so sorry -” she says, scrambing away. Her voice now is beautiful, rich and yet still soft.

“Gwen, don't apologise,” he hears himself saying. He pushes himself to focus. “This isn't  
exactly an everyday situation.”

Gwen just blushes, and looks away; a sharp cheekbone, darkened by scarlet. And God help him, Lancelot feels it; that spark of heat. He's always had a weakness for bashful, lovely boys; he wouldn't have got into half as much trouble the first time he came to Camelot if it hadn't been for Merlin.

“I was thinking,” he says quickly, before the moment can turn awkward. “I know you're afraid, Gwen, but nobody's going to recognise you like that. I didn't know you myself. It's safe to go as far as visiting Merlin. I'll lend you my cloak.”

“Oh god,” says Gwen.

“Really -”

“It's not that,” says Gwen. “I need to -” She glances at the back door; the privy's out in the yard.

Gwen comes back from the privy looking slightly shocked, and yet at the same time a little more comfortable in her (smooth, toffee-coloured) skin. Lancelot can't stop a smile tugging at his lips.

“Was that so awful?” he asks.

“It was – fine,” says Gwen. “It's just – I never had brothers. I, er.”

Lancelot lets his smile widen into a grin. “You'll get used to it.”

Gwen glances at him, and abruptly she laughs; sharp, and a little overwhelmed. Lancelot gives her a quizzical look.

“I'm a man,” she says. “I'm really a man. I ought – I mean, shouldn't I be, you know, out wenching?”

“If that's your taste,” says Lancelot, amused.

Apparently, hysteria makes Gwen bold. “What about you?” she says. “Wouldn't you rather be somewhere else? With someone prettier?”

Lancelot comes to his feet, and is standing inches from her – from this perfect young man – before he knows it.

“You're beautiful,” he says.

Gwen's hand is trembling as she reaches for his face.

 

 

“Then I want you to try it.”

“I can't do something like that inside the castle, Arthur. Not without attracting attention. And I'm telling you, it isn't necessary.”

Arthur grips the back of the sheepskin-draped chair; Merlin watches his hands, doesn't miss the pale spots that form over his knuckles.

“Set my mind at rest,” says Arthur. “If – you wouldn't mind.”  
Merlin's pretty sure that the one word he will never hear Arthur say in his life is please. It doesn't mean he can't tell when it's there.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. I'll go and tell them to get the horses ready.”

 

 

This, Gwen thinks, this is what that restless urge sweeping through her demands; at Lancelot's touch it focuses, tearing her whole being out into his eyes. She wants nothing more than to – what? To take him, or be taken by him? She wavers, drawn and yet uncertain, and Lancelot closes the distance between them in a kiss.

He is like nothing she's known; her father's anvil in human form, living and yet solid as stone. She tries her strength against his, fighting the arm that pins hers to her side; Lancelot meets her eyes, and a flicker of something savage crosses his face. He takes her wrist.

“Do you want to fight me?” he asks.

Gwen gives no answer, only tenses; there's a joy in the feel of such power coiled in her body. Lancelot's eyes flicker, and then he throws his weight forward. She dodges instinctively, but he still has her wrist – she staggers, and Lancelot slams her against the wall, crushing another kiss like a berry to her mouth. As he presses her back he grinds his hips against hers – and she feels it like an ache, his hardness rubbing against hers. She gasps, her head falls back; and Lancelot kisses her throat, working his hips slowly, slowly against hers. Inside the soft breeches the cock she'd seen is swollen and hot against her belly; jolts of pleasure shoot through her as the soft head slides loosely in its skin.

Lancelot reaches for the laces of the breeches. Forcefully, she stops his hand.

“No,” she says quietly. “Let me do this.”

Lancelot's eyes darken yet further; he steps back, and slowly sits down on the bed, leaning back. Gwen strips off the shirt; feels the chill of the air raise her nipples. She strokes one, curious; it's still sensitive. Lancelot follows her hand with wanting eyes; she catches the movement of his head, and smiles. Slowly she slips the knot of her laces loose; slides her hand inside, and curls her fingers round it. Her cock. It's an intense rush; sharper than when she touched herself under her shift, bringing a wash of desire to finish this now, here, this instant. She's woman enough to master the man within, and she slowly slides her hand down the shaft, learning herself. Lancelot gives a soft sound, half sigh and half moan.

“You want me, don't you,” Gwen says. “You want this body.”

Lancelot's only response is to slide his eyes down her chest, look straight from her hidden cock to her face.

“Such a sinner,” Gwen mocks him. “So full of virtue and honour, until you see this.”

“You're the one touching yourself,” says Lancelot, and his voice is so thick with lust she feels her cock twitch in her hand.

“Then you'd better join me,” she says. Lancelot tears off his shirt, and he's standing inches from her as he too loosens his breeches. He pauses, his gaze challenging; she hooks her fingers into his waist, and slides them down. His hand, fingertips warm on her skin, slides down her own waist and – ah. She hears herself make a sound so deep her chest hums with it. Lancelot pulls her close, and kisses her again.

They lose themselves in a slow easy rhythm, shuddering breaths and the slide of hands, hers unsteady, Lancelot's firm. She cries out when he drops to his knees, pulls her breeches roughly aside and takes her into his mouth. The heat is – is overwhelming, so much more of her to feel it swallow her down. Her thighs shake, she finds her hands locking in his hair; he holds her hips with bruising force, keeping her from thrusting into his mouth. The pleasure of it is building, every inch of her sensitive as Lancelot's mouth slips, his tongue curls around the head. She tries to warn him, but all that comes out is a choked gasp; he seems to understand her anyway, and hollows his cheeks as he sucks hard. It pushes her over the edge; she staggers as it hits her, a force of nature. And it goes on, a wave that doesn't wash away – it's seconds before she can open her eyes, and see Lancelot, licking his lips with catlike satisfaction.

“Do you -” she begins, but then something else hits her, and this she recognises; a spreading chill and the taste of apples in her mouth. She gasps, and lets her knees fold before the blackness takes her again.

 

 

In the woods Arthur hears Merlin's horse stop, and reins in his own to turn and ask what's wrong; but he falls silent at Merlin's face, frowning, eyes distant. Strangely, he has a flash of the taste of apples on his tongue, cold and sweet.

“Did you feel that?” says Merlin.

“I felt... something,” he says. “I tasted apples.”

Merlin's eyes drop closed again, and a moment later open.

“I think I know what you did,” he says.

 

 

When Gwen comes to, she's lying in her own bed covered by blankets; and Lancelot is sitting on the foot of it, fully dressed. His elbows rest on his knees and his head is down. When he hears her stirring he looks up; guilt is written plain across his face.

“I'm – Gwen, I'm sorry,” he says. “I should go.” He stands, abruptly.

“Lancelot,” says Gwen, reaching out a hand. He pauses. The look on his face breaks her heart; such a shame, and a deep, deep hurt she doesn['t think words can never soothe. But still she tries.

“I'm glad it was you who found me,” she says. A moment later, she admits something to herself. “And – I'm glad it was you.”

She watches Lancelot's face fall yet further as he realises; she was a virgin until now. “Oh god, Gwen. I shouldn't have taken advantage.”

“I'm not sorry.”

Lancelot's lips twist, but he comes to her and for a brief, agonised moment takes her head in his hands and presses his forehead against hers.

“You're an incredible woman,” he says. "I have to go. I can't stay."

They hang there like that for a moment, just breathing. And then Lancelot gets up; he backs away from her, his eyes still locked on hers, and quietly unlatches the back door. Gwen sits up slowly, a silent goodbye passing between them as Lancelot slips out. Her home is itself again, familiar, empty and at peace.

Slowly Gwen takes stock of herself; her body is as it was, and she feels none of the restless passion she felt before. She lays a hand on her own arm, as if to remind herself it's there. She gets out of bed, and goes to find a clean shift and her other dress, the yellow one a ruin on the chair.

 

 

“Guinevere,” says Morgana, her tone caught between relief and displeasure. “I'm glad you couild join me.”

“I'm sorry, my lady. It was – a family matter.”

“Well, that can't be helped, can it,” says Morgana. “A little more warning next time, please. Take out my dark blue dress and air it, would you? I want to wear it tonight.”

As Gwen moves off towards the garderobe, she finds her mind slowly turning on the events of the morning. Sorcery; and yet it had made her utterly real, a completely normal man. What would it have been like to go out, to smile at people in the street, to make girls blush with a wink? Would she have liked that, that sense of control?

If she found another apple, would she go back? She thinks of Lancelot's long smooth body, the sheer strength of him and the thrill of matching it. It makes her pause in her work, sending a sweep of remembered desire across her – and yet it's not the same. It's as if a veil has been drawn between herself, Guinevere, and the man who touched another man. That sharp, overwhelmingly immediate need is gone.

No; the image that lingers in her mind as she hangs Morgana's dress and sets about the long slow work of cleaning and mending is not one of bodies and lust. It's of Lancelot's eyes as he backed towards the door, dark with anguish and fixed on her face. She feels a stab of pity; there's an emptiness in her arms, as if she could wish him back just to comfort him.

She doesn't want to go back to manhood. That's not what Gwen is, what she wants to be. She's a woman. It doesn't matter whether the world is something you can change; she doesn't want to be the one who changes it. It's for her to be something else; the keeper of love and comfort, not challenge and shame. She has no desire to be the trial a knight must face; she would rather be the succour that waits for him on his return. She is Guinevere, and Guinevere is the one who comforts, not the one who causes pain.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this one is an interlude in the [Melinna](http://doomcanary.dreamwidth.org/tag/series:+melinna) series, but it stands alone as well.


End file.
